Thoughts on God changing the past

Thoughts on God changing the past
So, here is where I have come to on this subject as a result of the discussion happening here (which I invited). MOST (not all) respondents agree that God cannot change the past because of the nature of the past. Those who said God would not change the past because he foreordained it missed my point. My question was not about “would” but “can.” The Calvinist philosopher I mentioned (who denied that God can change the past) did not appeal to foreordination. He simply stated that God cannot change the past because the past is what already happened. Thus he was appealing to logic.

The strongest argument I have read here (or anywhere) against God being able to change the past AND that not “limiting God” is that to change a past event is to undo that which one is changing which means not changing it. For example, if God “went back” (as it were) and undid the holocaust it would make it the case that the holocaust never happened and therefore God would have nothing to “go back” (metaphorically speaking) and undo. So, changing the past seems (in spite of movies) to be absurd. That God cannot do it is no more a limitation of God’s omnipotence than the fact that he cannot create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it.

Here’s my point all along: IF it is the case that God’s inability to change the past has to do with the nature of the past and not at all with any limitation of God’s glory or power, WHY would it the case that God’s inability to know future, undetermined events (i.e., decisions and actions of free creatures) limits God’s glory or power or even omniscience? Isn’t that claim like saying that God’s lack of knowledge of the DNA of unicorns diminishes his power and glory? Or, more to the point, how does it differ from saying that God’s inability to change the past limits his power and glory?

In short, if it is the case that God’s inability to change the past, because of the nature of the past, does not affect God’s glory and power, why would it be the case that God’s inability to know the future exhaustively and infallibly affects God’s glory and power insofar as the future is partly unsettled?

Now, PLEASE stay on track with me here. The discussion is NOT about God’s sovereignty at this point. To raise the issue of God’s providential sovereignty and claim that saying God’s inability to know the unsettled future limits God’s sovereignty is to veer off topic and raise a separate issue.

IF someone argues that for God to be all glorious and all powerful he MUST foreordain and determine everything past, present and future he or she raises a different set of questions. What I am asking here is only this: IF it is the case that God logically cannot change the past without that in any way diminishing his glory and power HOW is it the case that an inability to know the future exhaustively and infallibly diminishes his glory and power insofar as knowing the future exhaustively and infallibly is logically impossible?

In terms of “cash value” here is my point. Many Calvinists (and perhaps others) claim that open theism especially diminishes God’s glory. (Some Calvinists claim that open theists are not even Christians!) Those same Calvinists probably believe God cannot change the past (logically). But open theism claims that God cannot know the future exhaustively and infallibly because of the nature of the future–not because of any inherent limitation in God (including self-limitation except insofar as God created a world where he could not know the future exhaustively and infallibly).

Now, of course, as I said earlier, IF a Calvinist changes the subject to claim that ALL non-deterministic theologies diminish God’s glory and power, that’s another debate. Then not only open theists but classical Arminians, many Lutherans, most Catholics, probably all Anabaptists and many other Christians are diminishing God’s power and glory. But Calvinist critics seem to aim primarily, if not exclusively, at open theism as especially limiting God’s glory and power. But how so? How is the open theist’s view of God and the future any MORE diminishing God’s glory and power than any garden variety non-deterministic theology?

Doesn’t this prove that the debate specifically over open theism is NOT over God but over the nature of the future just as the debate over God’s power over the past is NOT over God but over the nature of the past?